3rd All India Conference of East Asian Studies (AICEAS)
Dissonances in the World Order: Implications for Indo-Pacific & East Asia

Keynote Address by Prof. Kan Kimura, Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, Kobe University

Followed by Thematic discussions and a Special Panel by eminent academicians, policy experts and researchers on contemporary issues in East Asian Studies, international politics, regional security, technology, economics and the environment.

The conference will examine the evolving geopolitical, economic and strategic landscape of East Asia and the Indo-Pacific, with a particular focus on Japan's role in shaping a free, open and rules-based regional order. Discussions will explore regional security, economic resilience, technology, climate and multilateral cooperation.

This conference is in continuation to the 31st July’26 programme.

For the detailed programme, please click here

(Collaboration: Institute of Chinese Studies and Japan Foundation)

A Symphony of Discordant Notes: Navigating Evolving Technologies, Copyright Law, and Age-Old Indian Music

Moderator: Saikrishna Rajagopal, Managing Partner, Saikrishna & Associates

Discussants: Justice (Dr.) S. Muralidhar, Former Chief Justice (Orissa High Court) and Sr. Counsel, Supreme Court of India; Swathi Sukumar, Sr. Counsel, Delhi High Court and Supreme Court of India; Neel Mason, Counsel, Delhi High Court and Supreme Court of India; Adarsh Ramanujan, Counsel, Delhi High Court and Supreme Court of India; Gayatri Balasubramanian, Indian Carnatic Vocalist & Padma Shri Awardee, 2026 (on-line)

This session fosters a cross-disciplinary dialogue involving Indian music and legal experts to deconstruct the friction between modern studio practices and the demands of the evolving copyright framework. The panel will attempt to identify, simplify, and possibly solve the complexities of copyright law when dealing with the uniqueness and centuries-old heritage of Indian music.

(Collaboration: Saikrishna & Associates)
 

Building Resilient Relations: People as Stakeholders

Speaker: H.E. Riaz Hamidullah, High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India

Moderator: Dr Ashok Behuria, Editor (Hony.), Journal of Peace Studies and Chairman (Hony.) Centre for Peace Studies

People are central to bilateral relations. Bound by centuries of shared history and culture, human connections give depth, resilience, and direction to enduring ties between nations.

(Collaboration: Centre for Peace Studies)
 

LIVING LANDSCAPES 
Conceptualized by Anuj Srivastava

Art as Ecology: Learning from the Ecosystems of the Western Ghats
Speaker: By Arunkumar H G, Artist, Conservationist

The talk will be followed by a Panel Discussion

Moderator: Anuj Srivastava, Architect, Writer and Photographer

Discussants: Vijay Dhasmana, Rewilder and Ecological Restoration Practitioner; Ghazala Shahabuddin, Ecologist and Author

The talk and discussion will focus on how artistic practice can foster ecological consciousness and community engagement, drawing from Arunkumar's conservation work with SARA and its initiatives in ecosystem restoration, biodiversity conservation and environmental education.

(This is the eigth talk in the series on Living Landscape)

MOUNTAIN DIALOGUES 

Lighting Up the Himalayas: When Adventure Creates Lasting Change

Speaker: Paras Loomba, Founder, Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE).  Recipient of UN Global Climate Action Award at COP26 and WTTC Tourism for Tomorrow Award

Chair: Brigadier Ashok Abbey, a veteran mountaineer with over four and a half decades of climbing experience in the Great Ranges.

Can an expedition leave behind more than memories? This talk explores how Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE) transformed adventure travel into a platform for creating lasting impact in some of India's most remote mountain communities. The speaker reflects on how adventure tourism can become a catalyst for climate action and inclusive rural development.

(Collaboration: Himalayan Club and the Himalayan Environment Trust)
 

Sculptor's Lens: Isamu Noguchi and Premodern India

Speaker: Kalyani Madhura Ramachandran, art historian, currently a postdoctoral fellow, NYU Shanghai and previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Moderator: Parul Pandya Dhar, Art Historian. Professor, Department of History, University of Delhi

This talk highlights the modernist sculptor Isamu Noguchi's interest in the stonework of premodern India—including ancient sites such as Sanchi, Elephanta, Ajanta, and Mahabalipuram, the early medieval Qutb complex and late medieval Mughal structures—and traces the centrality of the "matter of sculpture" in his distinctive artistic philosophy and practice. 
 

Integration-the game changer in reversing chronic diseases

Speaker: Dr Vijay Mohan Kohli,MS MCh FIACS, Senior Consultant Cardiac Surgeon, Pushpawati Singhania Research Institute, Saket New Delhi.

Chair: Prof. Yogendra Kumar Gupta, pharmacologist, President of AIIMS Kalyani, West Bengal, and Chairman of the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM). 
The principles, modalities and benefits of Integrative Medicine will be presented and examination on how an integrated approach to healthcare can play a transformative role in the prevention, management and reversal of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and arthritis.
 

Archival Echoes of a Folk Lute in the Indian Himalaya

Speaker: Dr. Katherine Freeze Wolf, Independent scholar, with PhD in Musicology and Ethnomusicology, Brown University

Moderator: Shubha Chaudhuri, Associate Director General (Academic), Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology, American Institute of Indian Studies

The speaker will share their experience studying the Western Tibetan folk lute gowo (called ko-phongs in Ladakhi) in Ladakh, and the repatriation of musical recordings made between the 1930s and 1970s. The talk will explore the significance of these recordings in understanding the instrument's diverse performance styles, song ecologies and heritage narratives.

(Collaboration: American Institute of Indian Studies, Center for Art and Archaeology)

 

3rd All India Conference of East Asian Studies

Dissonances in the World Order: Implications for Indo-Pacific & East Asia

Keynote Address by Prof. Kan Kimura, Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, Kobe University

Followed by Thematic discussions and a Special Lecture by eminent academicians, policy experts and researchers on contemporary issues in East Asian Studies, international politics, regional security, technology, economics and the environment.

The conference will examine the evolving geopolitical, economic and strategic landscape of East Asia and the Indo-Pacific, with a particular focus on Japan's role in shaping a free, open and rules-based regional order. Discussions will explore regional security, economic resilience, technology, climate and multilateral cooperation.

For the detailed programme, please click here

(Collaboration: Institute of Chinese Studies and Japan Foundation)

The Democracy to Come

Ambedkar, Fanon, and the Time of Counter-Revolution  

Speaker: Dr Aishwary Kumar, Professor of History of Political Thought and Institutions, and Director of The Democracy Institute at Cal Poly Pomona, Chair, The GIFT Project and the American Institutions Common Core

Chair: Dr Mujibur Rehman, faculty, Jamia Millia Central University, New Delhi

Introductory Remarks: Dr Usha Munshi, Chief Librarian, IIC

The concept of “counter-revolution” occupies a galvanizing place in B. R. Ambedkar’s political thought and moral psychology. Unlike nationalists of his time, Ambedkar rarely speaks of extreme violence and exploitation as a function simply of modern colonial bondage. Instead, for him, “inequality” is force, a spectrum of compulsions, a desire even. Which is why its cruelty can be grasped only as a counter-revolutionary form that alters our very relationship to time and authority. Counter-revolution as a neo-democratic form: this singular insight—what I call "the caste contract"—puts Ambedkar in an exemplary constellation of abolitionist thinkers on human freedom and moral judgment who return to us today with a dark urgency.